Quick Look: Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me

@iAmJohn: I'm not sure where we disagree. If a developer doesn't want to take the time to design clever, original or fun platforming sections then they shouldn't waste our time throwing it in. Some amazing games focused on that. Most do not. It doesn't matter what perspective a designer uses. First person, third person, side scrolling, they can all be used well for platforming puzzles.

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then? Also, they should of played the PC version; the loading times are much better at least.

I like fps platforming...

@Sharpshooter: Why not get the rest of the achievements? I've always wondered about that. What made that achievement any less pointless than the rest, I mean, you didn't S-Rank it or anything.

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then? Also, they should of played the PC version; the loading times are much better at least.

He does not like Mirror's Edge.

I'm glad there's a button that lets me turn off the comments section.

DNF was just morally repugnant, even had it not been mechanically inept.

It took actual war crimes to beat Duke Nukem in Worst Game of the Year 2011. Remember that.

Edit: I also have this reoccurring memory of Black Friday where a mother bought Duke Nukem for a kid at the local Gamestop. I will never imagine how angry that kid must have been and how terrible the mom felt.

@NekuCTR said:

I would still rather play this than Modern Warfare 3. A short campaign with stupid, sometimes humerus jokes is FAR preferable to an extremely short, mostly on rails campaign that just grazes over me like fucking air. Also you can get Duke for a song at this point.

Humorous, it's spelled humorous.

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then?

Who does like Mirror's Edge? Its awful. And Portal does a pretty good jump at lining up you when airborn. Its not really platforming at all.

Duke Nukem AND Postal 3 Quicklooks? 2012 is starting strong, folks!

@MysteriousBob said:

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then?

Who does like Mirror's Edge? Its awful. And Portal does a pretty good jump at lining up you when airborn. Its not really platforming at all.

Mirror's Edge is the only game to do first-person platforming right. Ryan's just saying most platforming in first-person games are awful e.g. Half Life series.

The jumping puzzle you stopped on is basically the only one in the DLC. And really, the DLC picks up a lot after that.

@AssInAss said:

@MysteriousBob said:

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then?

Who does like Mirror's Edge? Its awful. And Portal does a pretty good jump at lining up you when airborn. Its not really platforming at all.

Mirror's Edge is the only game to do first-person platforming right. Ryan's just saying most platforming in first-person games are awful e.g. Half Life series.

I don't know about that... I would personally add Half Life 1/2 to the list of first person games, that do platforming right.

Then, there's the Metroid Prime series that also do platforming well in first person - somehow staying true to the feeling of the 2D originals.

I think it's safe to say I won't be getting this. I don't know how I suffered through the main game really.

JESUS CHRIST IT'S THE CRATE. SHOOT THE CRATE.

It's the worst when the guys get stuck because they're just not. Paying. Attention.

"...Doctor Who..."

^ what I wish this game was about

Man that was frustrating watching them miss the exploding barrel at the beginning. FFFFF.

You play FPS like my Wife. Always aiming and shooting at the enemies feet. It's so frustrating for me to watch...lol. I lose enamel every time I see it.

Dr. Proton is reason enough for me to play this.

First person platforming works much better with keyboard and mouse IMHO. I thought most of the platforming in Half Life was fine but it's been terrible in other games for sure.

I just got Duke Nuke Forever 2 day ago time to try it :)

@Landon said:

@NekuCTR said:

I would still rather play this than Modern Warfare 3. A short campaign with stupid, sometimes humerus jokes is FAR preferable to an extremely short, mostly on rails campaign that just grazes over me like fucking air. Also you can get Duke for a song at this point.

I would rather play the game where it is actually fun to shoot things. So CoD has this beat.

Then of course, both these needs would be satisfied by, say, Bulletstorm, Borderlands and Serious Sam.

@Buzzkill said:

@PrivateIronTFU said:

@Buzzkill said:

I could not hate brad and ryan any more than I do right now. Complaining about jumping puzzles in FPS games yet you praised Portal 2??? Hippocrite much? I had to stop watching this quicklook before it ended so I didn't punch my monitor.

Bitch much?

I'll stop bitching when hipsters stop thinking it's cool to hate on the Duke, when obviously they are blowing smoke out their rears. San Francisco has really gone to the GB crew's heads. That city turns everyone into morons. (sorry Shamus)

Bro, no worries then, I live on the other side of the world and everything I have seen of DNF makes me think its aggressively unfunny and boring. GB guys are probably fine.

@fisk0 said:

@Landon said:

@NekuCTR said:

I would still rather play this than Modern Warfare 3. A short campaign with stupid, sometimes humerus jokes is FAR preferable to an extremely short, mostly on rails campaign that just grazes over me like fucking air. Also you can get Duke for a song at this point.

I would rather play the game where it is actually fun to shoot things. So CoD has this beat.

Then of course, both these needs would be satisfied by, say, Bulletstorm, Borderlands and Serious Sam.

Ya, I still need to get around to Bulletstorm. I'm just saying that at a budget price makes this far less egregious a crime than when it was first released, and I would be fine with MW3 too if it was 20 bucks, but obviously the production involved with that makes it impossible.

@Shtinky said:

@AssInAss said:

@MysteriousBob said:

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then?

Who does like Mirror's Edge? Its awful. And Portal does a pretty good jump at lining up you when airborn. Its not really platforming at all.

Mirror's Edge is the only game to do first-person platforming right. Ryan's just saying most platforming in first-person games are awful e.g. Half Life series.

I don't know about that... I would personally add Half Life 1/2 to the list of first person games, that do platforming right.

Then, there's the Metroid Prime series that also do platforming well in first person - somehow staying true to the feeling of the 2D originals.

The puzzles themselves in the Half-life games aren't horrible, but the first person camera is, as the way they have the "eyes" placed in the Half-life games (and sadly, most FPS games that aren't using the Unreal engine, which thankfully seems to do it right by default, though some developers seem to change it) makes it exceptionally hard to judge distances or look over ledges without falling (Half-life 1 had an particularly hard moment, when you first get into the ravine and have to jump down platforms below you, which can't be seen until you're inches away from falling to your death). Mirror's Edge, F.E.A.R. and a few others do it right by placing the camera slightly in front of the turning axis for the character, which makes the perspective shift a little when you turn, which helps you see some depth in the image.

@NekuCTR said:

@fisk0 said:

@Landon said:

@NekuCTR said:

I would still rather play this than Modern Warfare 3. A short campaign with stupid, sometimes humerus jokes is FAR preferable to an extremely short, mostly on rails campaign that just grazes over me like fucking air. Also you can get Duke for a song at this point.

I would rather play the game where it is actually fun to shoot things. So CoD has this beat.

Then of course, both these needs would be satisfied by, say, Bulletstorm, Borderlands and Serious Sam.

Ya, I still need to get around to Bulletstorm. I'm just saying that at a budget price makes this far less egregious a crime than when it was first released, and I would be fine with MW3 too if it was 20 bucks, but obviously the production involved with that makes it impossible.

Yeah, sure, I actually bought a second copy of DNF just because it's gotten so cheap. But that was mainly just wanting to try it on both PC and PS3, and have one physical copy of it just for history's sake, I wouldn't try to justify it's quality as a game compared to games that at least manage to excel in some regards (there's no denying Call of Duty's gunplay is great, they're just games that don't interest me), whereas DNF, while not a terrible game, is mediocre in pretty much every regard.

I am surprised that the guys forgot Dr Proton was the arch-enemy of the first Duke Nukem game on PC given how much they know of gaming history.

If anything, I can appreciate the Duke 2 reference right after you bust out of the first room.

Shit grabbing at you through doors, dawg.

I'd prefer a FPS with jumping puzzles rather than one without. Half-Life 2 as so much fun becase it wasn't just always shoot dudes at all times. I see nothing wrong with FPS puzzles.

Ryan: Spinning!

Brad: That's a neat trick...

Nice subtle Episode 1 reference, Brad Shoemaker.

sigh....

No.

I wonder if the FPS platforming isn't so much a Duke Nukem thing, but a Gearbox thing since Borderlands had it in those weapon scavenger side missions. I personally don't like FPS platforming either, especially when it's not "platforms" but obscure geometry, as in Borderlands. That was probably the most frustrating, trial and error part of that game for me. Still great.

...must go complete Duke Nukem 3D with full 200 Points.

I can't believe Ryan Davis didn't see the explosive barrel behind that door. It took me less than 10 seconds to figure it out when I played it.

Compared to Postal 3, Duke Nukem Forever is a masterpiece.

Ryan, at least you're not playing Postal 3 again. I don't know how a modern game could possibly get worse than Postal 3. Postal 3 makes the mediocre Duke Nukem Forever seem like Halo by comparison.

There's actually some pretty funny stuff in this DLC once you get past the opening bits and find all the Duke clones.

How did they not say anything about the opening room being a reference to codblops? I never even played that game and I caught it.

Wasn't Dr. Proton supposed to be the main bad guy in DNF? At least at one point, I think I remember seeing him in there a few game engines ago.

it even actually looks almost better than the real DKF...not that being more fun that it is that complicated...

I liked the little Blops parody at the beginning :D

Did no-one get the references to Dead Space in those "scanning" rooms and "alternate life forms detected"?

@Smiley26: @LevelUpAdrian: I'm not entirely sure those were intentional references, Duke Nukem II also started off with Duke in captivity, strapped to a chair (in an non-interactive cutscene). The scanning thing has been done many times in games and movies, so it could just as well be a trope as an reference, Gearbox themselves used it in the PS2 exclusive Half-life: Decay co-op campaign. The visual presentation of the scenes seemed slightly referential to Black Ops and Dead Space though.

i would love to get this some time i love DNF. but i still hope when gearbox makes THEIR duke nukem game, than it will be many many times better like most their games before because its not gearboxes fault everyone else didnt like the game... just sayin

@fisk0 said:

@Shtinky said:

@AssInAss said:

@MysteriousBob said:

@Shtinky said:

Ryan doesn't like first person platforming? So doesn't he like Portal or Mirror's Edge, then?

Who does like Mirror's Edge? Its awful. And Portal does a pretty good jump at lining up you when airborn. Its not really platforming at all.

Mirror's Edge is the only game to do first-person platforming right. Ryan's just saying most platforming in first-person games are awful e.g. Half Life series.

I don't know about that... I would personally add Half Life 1/2 to the list of first person games, that do platforming right.

Then, there's the Metroid Prime series that also do platforming well in first person - somehow staying true to the feeling of the 2D originals.

The puzzles themselves in the Half-life games aren't horrible, but the first person camera is, as the way they have the "eyes" placed in the Half-life games (and sadly, most FPS games that aren't using the Unreal engine, which thankfully seems to do it right by default, though some developers seem to change it) makes it exceptionally hard to judge distances or look over ledges without falling (Half-life 1 had an particularly hard moment, when you first get into the ravine and have to jump down platforms below you, which can't be seen until you're inches away from falling to your death). Mirror's Edge, F.E.A.R. and a few others do it right by placing the camera slightly in front of the turning axis for the character, which makes the perspective shift a little when you turn, which helps you see some depth in the image.

Patrick and Ryan just had a pretty entertaining argument over Mirror's Edge in the latest TNT for BF 3. Brad declared a stalemate.

They've missed out a pretty big change in the DLC. They added an option in the settings that allows you to carry four guns at a time instead of just two. I played this on the PC version and that was an in-game tooltip early on that came up.

@PrivateIronTFU said:

@Buzzkill said:

I could not hate brad and ryan any more than I do right now. Complaining about jumping puzzles in FPS games yet you praised Portal 2??? Hippocrite much? I had to stop watching this quicklook before it ended so I didn't punch my monitor.

Bitch much?

I'll stop bitching when hipsters stop thinking it's cool to hate on the Duke, when obviously they are blowing smoke out their rears. San Francisco has really gone to the GB crew's heads. That city turns everyone into morons. (sorry Shamus)

@TinyGrasshopper said:

They've missed out a pretty big change in the DLC. They added an option in the settings that allows you to carry four guns at a time instead of just two. I played this on the PC version and that was an in-game tooltip early on that came up.

I played through the game with and without this feature on; it really doesn't change the way the game plays at all considering the game is built around Duke only being able to carry 2 weapons. Since ammo piles are incredibly infrequent for most guns, you'll be stuck using 2 weapons most of the time anyway.

The DLC feels like a slight improvement over the original game, although that's not saying much. The arenas seem to have more fighting going on in them, the level design seems better, but the core gameplay still seem really dull. Also, you gotta love those long loading times for such small maps. Considering I paid $10 for Duke Nukem Forever, I'm not going to spend as much and only get a smaller portion of the game that doesn't interest me anyway.

I'm pretty sure half of that quick look was the loading screen. ;-)